208 



NEW ENGLAND FAEMER. 



July 



For the Neto England Farmer. 

 ON COOKED AND UNCOOKED FOOD. 



Mr. Editor : — Your correspondent of Kensing- 

 ton mistakes in supposing that my mind is pretty 

 much on potatoes. He writes as though I recom- 

 mended potatoes for fattening hogs. My remarks 

 on potatoes were to iUwstrate my idea of the value 

 of cooked food compared with raw. Hogs can be 

 fatted on cooked potatoes ; no person of experi- 

 ence will attempt to do it on raw. One of the 

 most successful farmers I ever knew — one who 

 found farming profitable — had a large oven con- 

 structed, and baked his potatoes for his hogs, which 

 he thus fatted to four hundred weight each. That 

 was when potatoes were worth ten or twelve cents 

 a bushel, and could be raised on rough land at the 

 rate of two to three hundred bushels to the acre. 

 Now, it requires good land and good cultivation 

 to get a hundred bushels of sound potatoes to the 

 acre. But to return to the subject of cooked or 

 raw food. Your correspondent alludes to the prac- 

 tice of many persons to feed raw corn and whole, 

 and suggests that the experiments of Ellsworth 

 were in 1847, before the later practice. I suppose 

 hogs were then pretty much like the hogs of the 

 present day, and corn the same. In this part of 

 the country, many, and very large proportion of 

 people, have no barn cellars and let their cattle 

 range up and down the road ; but that is no argu- 

 ment to convince me that this is the best treat- 

 ment of cattle or the most ])rofitable way to save 

 manure. It has been a standing maxim that what 

 an animal digests aflbrds the nutriment, not what 

 it eats, merely. If this still holds true, the large 

 part of the hard corn eaten by hogs that passes 

 them undigested is lost. If crushed and cooked, it 

 would not be. 



When I was a boy there was much said about a 

 great Morrell hog that weighed over six hundred 

 pounds, a very large hog for that day, and he was 

 fatted on hasty pudding and milk. If it made him 

 sleepy it gave him rest to fatten. 



The many cases of practice quoted by Mr. 

 Brown do not purport to be founded on well tried 

 experiments, and prove nothing against the ex- 

 perience and observation of practical men. 



RuFUs McIntire. 



Parsonsfidd, Me., 1863. 



For the Netp England Fanner. 

 TREES AND VINES, AND THEIE, ROOTS. 



There exists an impression among farmers that 

 the roots of trees extend no further hoi'izontally 

 than their limbs do vertically. So of vines — that 

 the spread of the roots and the vine are equal. 

 On such matters as this farmers have no right to 

 mere impressions ; they, of all men, should have 

 positive knowledge. This belongs to their de- 

 partment and it is not to the honor of a man to 

 have eyes no better than mere lenses for his s])e- 

 cial calling. When I go into a store and find the 

 keeper knows nothing more of the goods he is 

 daily handling, of their material, of their manufac- 

 ture, and of the many questions that would sug- 

 gest themselves to any intelligent person, than my 

 own fingers and eyes will at the moment give, I, 

 of necessity, set that man down as a stupid dolt — 

 who has voluntarily become a slave that he may 

 thereby get money. This is the disgrace of a man, 

 not what he does, whether he is a rag-gatherer or 



a merchant prince, but that he is a mere drudge 

 at it, a mere finger-worker, or a mere eye-worker, 

 with no mind that subjects all things to itself and 

 makes the business but intellectual and spiritual 

 pabulum for the building of a man. It is not nec- 

 essary that any farmer should be but a mere Avork- 

 er, a mere drudge ; but necessity oftentimes press- 

 es him close towai'ds these narrow confines, and 

 he, therefore, who invents labor-saving machines, 

 and thus lessons the pressure of labor on the hus- 

 bandman, does more for his mental and moral im- 

 provement than many learned essays heavy with 

 dolorous lamentations and emphatic with injunc- 

 tions. 



But to return to the root of this matter — a tree 

 root it is — while uncovering my seed cabbage the 

 other day, I found the root of a mulberry tree 

 traversing the soil at a great distance from the 

 parent tree. I called old "Mike's" attention to it, 

 but he was sure it couldn't be the root of the tree, 

 for he had heard say in the "ould counthry" that 

 the roots of an ash could never run farther than 

 its top. "But, see here, Mike," said I, "you see 

 how yellow it is, as yellow as a gold dollar, so it 

 must be from the mulberry tree, and from nothing 

 else." 



This Mike couldn't deny, though the supreme 

 sovereignty of his native oak tree might be some- 

 what limited thereby ; so he took the lath lying 

 near by (we use the lath for the seed cabbage ; 

 four feet by two is a gVjod rule) and measured the 

 distance to the tree. It was just forty-four feet 

 from where we found the root ; and as the root 

 was there about one-quarter of an inch in diame- 

 ter, it would be safe to estimated that the root ex- 

 tended fifty feet from its native tree. We found 

 the height of the tree to be about twenty-five feet. 



Observing people could readily recount a score 

 of illustrations proving that the roots of trees and 

 vines do extend further than the vertical or hori- 

 zontal growth above ground. The impression that 

 the i-oots of squash vines keep pace with the spread 

 of the vine itself, is entirely erroneous. Four 

 years ago I traced the root of a vine five feet from 

 the hill, though the vine had, at that date, made a 

 growth of but eighteen inches. 



Any one can have a very pleasing illustration 

 on this point by planting squashes in a rich, po- 

 rous soil, and de])ositing some manure on the sur- 

 face at various distances from the vines. In a 

 short time, on lifting the manure, a beautiful dis- 

 play will present itself: a plexure, or net work of 

 ten thousand little white rootlets will be seen, so 

 numerous and so minute as to confuse the eye 

 and appear like a thin mist on the surface. 



James J. H. Gregory. 



Marhlehead, Mmj, 1863. 



Calves. — The great secret of success in raising 

 calves, aSter keeping them clean and comfortable, 

 is very regular and uniform feeding, combined with 

 nutritious food, and avoiding all sudden changes 

 in their food. On the whole, it is best to wean 

 them very early, as they will then never suck the 

 cow again, nor themselves. Their food may at 

 first be new milk, then warm skimmed milk, then 

 skimmed milk with meal intermixed, thus passing 

 from new milk to common food with meal, and 

 being especially careful that all these changes 

 should be very gradual, and almost imperceptible. 

 — Country Gentleman. 



